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Only she hadn’t reserved a seat, naively, and the restaurant had been full to capacity.
On the brink of walking away, Fiero had been there, a spare seat at his table, and he’d offered it to her.
He was handsome. Unbelievably so. But while she noticed his looks – only a blind woman would fail to notice them – it was so much more
than that. She’d taken a seat but it had been more like being sucked into the orbit of a shining star. His accent was light – hints of American mingled with upper-class British and the husky softness of an Italian lilt that had sent little explosions going in her veins. Then there were his stories – light-hearted and amusing. Charming.
She’d had years to reflect on that, and she saw now, with the kind of cynicism that came as a result of disappointment, that his charm was nothing other than a practiced seduction. His stories designed to entertain without enlightening, so he talked and yet she learned very little about him. He’d grown up in Italy, but moved around a lot – my grandparents raised me and my grandfather had business interests all over the world. Little sentences which meant nothing to Elodie but which, once she googled him and learned who he was, understood in greater detail.
To Elodie, their dinner had been the start of something incredible – where her parents’ marriage had begun, she’d felt her own heart burst to life, and on the basis of a few hours over a candlelit dinner, she’d suddenly seen a whole future, she’d seen a man she wanted to know inside and out, in every way.
If she hadn’t felt that, she would never have invited him back to her flat. She’d have never let her guard down.
He’d been so different to anyone she’d ever met.
He’d been special, and he’d made her feel special, even when she saw now that she’d been just another woman in his bed, a notch on his bedpost.
Disgust and anger exploded in her chest, and they were emotions she was grateful for, emotions that would be essential to surviving the next few months.
And then what?
Their son was two. It would be years before they were no longer bound together in the same way. Years before she wouldn’t have Fiero as a fixture in her daily life.
Damn it. Anger was still there, but so was something far more dangerous, something she wished, more than anything, she didn’t feel. Desire surged inside of her, their kiss still tingling on her lips, overwriting memories of the night they’d spent together and the powerful way his body had claimed hers.
She groaned quietly, shaking her head.
This would be a disaster.
This would be a disaster.
He slammed his hands on the steering wheel as he sped out of the private hospital’s gates, his gaze focussed on the road in the distance, his mind absorbing everything that had just happened.
He cursed into the confines of the luxury car, his body filled with adrenaline and a deep, resonant ache for the woman he had, over the past six weeks, come to hate with every fibre of his being.
Every moment he spent with their son caused that hatred to deepen, every smile, every laugh, every word, showed him only what he had missed, and why.
His hands gripped the wheel more tightly, until his knuckles glowed white, and he swore once more, the curse ripping through the car with a satisfying volume.
His anger and resentment had made him want to do the unforgivable right back to her. How tempted he’d been to remove her from his life, from Jack’s life, to give her a taste of her own medicine. It would have been wrong, and he knew that, morally repugnant and not in their son’s interests, just as she’d said, and yet the temptation had been there to do whatever the hell he could to show her his pain, to let her see how wrong she’d been.
Instead, he’d offered for her to damn well move in with him.
That wouldn’t be such a disaster except for their kiss, which showed him very clearly that no matter how little he thought of her and her actions, he still wanted her. He wanted her in a way that made no sense, and he bitterly resented that fact. Elodie Gardiner was the most captivating woman he’d ever known, but her lie was something that ate through him like acid. Perhaps if he hadn’t already known the pain of infertility, of a stillborn son, the loss of a child, perhaps he could make allowances for her choice. Perhaps he might even acknowledge that there’d been an element of bravery in her decision to raise their son on her own.
But his heart had been cut deeply by his experiences and Elodie’s choice was like fresh pain being scored over old. He had to remember that, even when he looked at her and wanted to forget all this, when he wanted to simply lose himself in the passion she could arouse, in the needs she sparked to life deep in his soul…
She wouldn’t show it, but Elodie was exhausted. Since the accident, she’d been sleeping more – something her doctors had assured her was part and parcel of any injury, let alone one like hers. But the afternoon had taken its toll.
Arriving at Fiero’s house, being shown around by the nanny Emilia, spending the afternoon with a very excited Jack – who wanted to show her every little thing he had found to love in this enormous, palatial residence, and most of all, pretending she wasn’t utterly panicked by what she’d agreed to.
But she knew it wasn’t as simple as that. She’d had no choice but to agree with this, no choice to fall in with his plans. Losing Jack wasn’t an option. Her tummy squeezed at the very idea.
She’d known enough loss, she’d felt the cold hand of loneliness, and worse, regret. Regret at the part she’d played in her parents’ death, regret that she hadn’t spent enough time with them in the years leading up to it. Regret that she’d let her professional ambitions overrule any sense of family obligations.
Had they known how much she loved them? How grateful she was for them, every day? And for the sacrifices they’d made so she could live her best life?
A lump formed in her throat and she blinked to clear the tears from forming in her eyes.
